Tim Erickson has never been to Portland. But from his vantage point in Minnesota, the Rose City suddenly looks quite inviting.

Erickson's online startup, Spice Apps, is among nearly 300 companies that applied this week to join the inaugural class of the Portland Incubator Experiment, the Pearl District entrepreneurship lab hosted by advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy.

Historically, Portland hasn't been a go-to destination for Internet entrepreneurs. There isn't a single truly large online company based in Oregon and the state hasn't grown a really big tech business in decades.

Participating mentors: Technology managers from Coke, Target, Nike and Google, and several Portland tech stalwarts. Voyager Capital and Intel Capital will also participate.

Selections: PIE received 290 applications for its first class, 60 percent from outside Oregon. The first class starts September 1 with eight to 10 startups. PIE expects to select a second class for the spring of 2012.

Terms: Participants will receive an $18,000 in exchange for a 6 percent equity stake in their company.

Location: Wieden+Kennedy's offices in Portland's Pearl District.

That's captured the attention of entrepreneurs around the country.

PIE is casting itself as an open, freewheeling experience, Erickson said, with a brand orientation that dovetails neatly with what Spice Apps is trying to do: build "niche communities" online, for household brands.

"They can connect us to major brands and have mentors with real world experience in areas we're trying to solve/improve," Erickson wrote in an email.

PIE's application deadline closed Monday night and its managers have spent the week combing through the submissions. Of the 290 applicants, general manager Rick Turoczy says, 60 percent are from outside Oregon.

"The companies were all across the board from mobile to games to enterprise software," Turoczy wrote in an e-mail Thursday night.

PIE's mentors and advisors have ranked the applicants and are now seeking feedback from the sponsoring brands before selecting a group of candidates to interview.

The aspirants include Kiind, a Victoria, B.C. company that hopes to help businesses attract customers with a gift for those likely to be especially interested.

"We applied to PIE because of PIE's unique combination of technical and marketing mentorship, as well as the chance to sit down with major, global brands (part of our future, customer and partner base)," co-founder Leif Baradoy wrote in an email.

PIE's high proportion of out-of-state applicants contrasts with the Portland Seed Fund, a parallel effort backed by local economic development agencies that hope to build a regional software cluster.

That was in part by design -- the seed fund is fundamentally an economic development effort, focused on Oregon.

PIE's backers include many boosters of Portland's startup scene, but the initiative does not have an expressly regional focus. That concerns some in Portland's startup community, who worry PIE's startups will move on after a brief stay in the city.

"If I were an entrepreneur based elsewhere, I don't think $18,000 in cash and 3 months of free rent would be enough to keep me here beyond the PIE residency," writes Kelly Meeker, who works at Portland e-learning startup OpenSesame (but emphasized that she's speaking just for herself.)

"I'd argue they should extend the length of residency or add another incentive to stay," Meeker said.

But 1UpFit -- a Portland startup focused on social networking for fitness buffs -- says PIE is more relaxed about control than other incubators and argues the city can sell itself.

"It seems to be a very accessible for young companies like us. Some incubators ask for a lot of control or the involvement seems too demanding," wrote Kevin Steigerwald, 1UpFit's co-founder.

"I spent 5 years working in Chicago before moving out to Portland just over a year ago," he wrote in an e-mail, "and the entire collaborative work environment of Portland is unbelievable."

Both Kiind and Spice Apps say they're open to relocating to Portland for the long term, should PIE accept them. Family ties and other considerations may pull them back home, but they say Portland has more to offer than just the PIE experience.

"There is a very good potential we might stay after the program," wrote Erickson, Spice Apps' co-founder. "We believe that the quality of the team and their hustle is what makes a company, not its proximity to VC (venture capital) or other things usually uttered as the reason to be in the Bay Area."